One of our greatest successes is certainly the licence to train coaches in five sports, awarded by the International Olympic Committee in 2014. The licence placed us among 10 referential world coach training schools.

The Sports Academy has acquired international affirmation through more than a hundred graduate students and teachers who work as top experts at home and abroad. They have been part of expert teams of the Serbian Ski Association, the Serbian Athletics Federation, the Serbian Water Polo Association, the Yugoslav Table Tennis Association, Red Star BC, the Serbian Weightlifting Federation, Partizan BC, Hemofarm BC, Lokomotiv Rostov BC, Unics Kazan BC, Khimki Moscow BC – Eurocup winner, Fenerbahçe Istanbul BC with Željko Obradović, etc.

Our teachers and associates have reached the greatest international success in the history of our publishing of scientific and professional books. More precisely, Springer, a prestigious publisher, has published so far more than 35 books written by our professors. For the writing and printing of the last three books, experimental research was conducted at the Academy in the 2015/16 academic year. An epoch-making edition, as the publisher says, of the book The Evolution and Future of Top Sport, has passed Springer’s rigorous review and will be published at the end of this year. The authors are our teachers and associates: Dr Tijana Ivančević, Professor Leon Lukman, Dr Bojan Jovanović , and Dr Aleksandar Lukman.

It would be unfair not to mention a highly prolific author of books and scientific papers in the field of philosophy and sport, Dr Milan Uzelac. As the only author, he has written more than 30 books. His most important book, Philosophy of Education, published by the Serbian Institute of Textbook Publishing in 2016, is a critical review of our educational system.

With the aim of improving its expert work, Partizan Yugoslav Sports Association founded the Commission for Expert Work and Scientific Support to Coaches. All members and the President of the Commission were the Academy’s teachers from 1996 to 2012. During this time, The Commission published annually a book about the expert work of the Society, sports results, resources, and development strategy of around 200 pages. In the same way, a part of the Academy’s teaching staff did the same job, somewhat smaller in size, at Red Star Sports Association.

Since 2008, the Sports Academy has been publishing a scientific and professional journal in English, entitled Serbian Journal of Sports Sciences, ranked among the leading journals in Serbia and highly respected in sports science circles. The initiator and the journal’s editor-in-chief is our long-time professor and former Yugoslav swimming champion, Dr Milivoj Dopsaj.

At the suggestion of the Penal and Correctional Institution in Sremska Mitrovica, the Sports Academy agreed to educate and rehabilitate all interested former athletes in prison. You would not believe us that they were our best students with an average mark over 9. Today, they are famous experts in prestigious fitness centres. In truth, we must admit that the prisoners, at that time our students, attended consultations and exams with handcuffs around their wrists. A lot of effort was invested by the teaching and non-teaching staff and the success of the rehabilitation was guaranteed.

It is necessary to mention that more than 100 police officers have successfully graduated from the Sports Academy. Many of them have become colonels and heads at the Serbian Ministry of the Interior, whereas one of them is still Assistant Commander of the Gendarmerie.

The Academy has organised two international ex-libris sports-themed exhibitions and four exhibitions of Sports Academy art placards at the Belgrade City Library.
Also, the Academy has organised two ethno jazz concerts in the rhythm of sports movements at the Trade Union House Hall, packed to the last seat. The participants included music bards, such as Spasov, Dugić, Maričić, and Biljana Krstić.

In these 20 years, the Academy has invested more than 100 million Serbian dinars in the education of athletes without financial means, doctoral dissertation writing, expert work specialisation and sports events organisation, management and sports organisation leadership, old sports facilities renovation, and substantial help to clubs without financial support.

The moral code of the Academy’s students and teachers is a projection of Nikola Tesla’s message to the Serbs and humankind: “The man was born to work and learn, endure and fight, he who doesn’t, has to perish”. The message to our students and future coaches is: achieve best results and win medals, but in such a way that the health and personalities of our children remain intact.